So one of the core problems of our times is how to fight third world poverty. There have been lots of different theories and some are more successful than others. One recent development is the concept of "Microfinancing".

Anyway a friend of mineis part of a nonprofit trying to raise capital to help poor communities in Honduras. And the thing is $25, $50, or $100 bucks to us doesn't do anywhere near what it could do down there. I'll let him describe his project and provide the link.

A little bit of background. A little over a year ago, myself and a few others founded La Ceiba Microfinance Inc., an economic development nonprofit to partner with another organization, Students Helping Honduras. Our purpose was initially to be a financial organization to lend sustainability to their brick and mortar projects, and so far we've been met with a good deal of success. We provide small business loans to rural Hondurans, using social capital as collateral by cross-guaranteeing loans with loan groups of five. The loans get paid back with interest to allocate them efficiently to clients who will actually make the most of them.

Our program is expanding to more clients in the area who want to pay for an opportunity to increase their own standard of living and thereby develop their community's economy. Microcredit programs have been seen to be among the most effective in terms of regional economic change, while at the same time replacing charity with the beginnings of a functional basic finance sector. All of our clients are required to go through basic financial management training to learn fundamental business and record keeping concepts and to help guarantee their repayment.


Linky

So If you have some to give, and want to help Latin American Poverty jump on the microfinancing bandwagon today!

So I've known about my food allergies for a while. I realized a slight itch in the back of my throat when I ate bananas in college wasn't normal. Up to that point I had always chalked it up to "well that is just a result of the texture of bananas" and never thought it was a food allergy. Since then I've been coming up with a list of foods that cause some kind of response. Bananas, carrots, avocados, melons, kiwi, and mango. Well today out of random curiosity I thought I'd try and see if that is all part of some food group or something which would explain it.

Well turns out it is. http://dmd.nihs.go.jp/latex/cross-e.html Latex-Fruit Syndrome. Yay I have a name for it. Now I should mention I've never noticed any reaction if a food is cooked which explains why some of the "suspect foods" don't cause a reaction. I mean who the hell would eat a raw potato?

Anyway so now I have a list of suspect foods. And apparently as a Latex-Fruit Syndrome guy I apparently have a higher chance than the normal population of developing a latex allergy. Good think I'm not in the medical professions.

So now it will be a matter of discussing it with my doctor and seeing if allergy shots will help, because if I could eat normal healthy foods without adverse reactions, that would be awesome.

Ya Comrade!

You are a Social Liberal (75% permissive) and an... Economic Liberal (20% permissive) You are best described as a: Socialist Link: The Politics Test on Ok Cupid Also : The OkCupid Dating Persona Test

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Though to be fair I sometimes shift dramatically depending on the test questions and the way I feel that day. Though more and more it seems to come up socialist in these tests.

I have a rather expansive musical pallet. On my iPod now I have music that would count as classic rock, blues, big band, House(Techno sub-genre), and jazz. What I would like to hear is a fusion of two of these genres namely big band (or swing) and house). Both have a desire to facilitate dancing, and I think the mixing of big band tracks into a house beat and melodies could have a nice refreshing sound.

Unfortunately I don't know anything about mixing, editing, DJing, or music theory so my desire for Big Band House or Swing house will likely go unrealized.

Last night I called my sister, who asked to talk later since she was in the middle of the new 90210. Jessica out of curiosity wanted to see what this was like so we switched to CW for the show. I however had no interest in 90210, just as I had no interest in any of the 90210 shows. so I sat on the couch surfing on the laptop.

I stumbled upon some stuff about the Wu Tang Clan promoting chess, and it got me remembering fondly my days in college when I played a lot of chess. The west mall on campus, playing blitz chess after class. So much fun. Loved it.

Anyway as I was going to sleep last night I came up with a chess variant. Basically you'd need a normal chess board, 2 8 sided die, and some coins/chips/markers/slips of paper. The concept is after each turn (turn being a white move AND a black move) you'd have a 'meteor' crash into the board rendering one square completely unusable. And any piece on that square when the meteor hit would be destroyed. This can include the King making the game over. Meteors can hit the same square more than once. So to determine which square is destroyed you would roll the 8 sided die to determine the square. So white queen's rook typically known as being on square a1, would be detsroyed if it was (1,1) rolled. Black King's rook (h8) would be 8,8, and you get the idea.

Now this does introduce a large matter of chance, but it can make chess fun for players of differing skill because anything could happen. My queen that has been dominating the game may suddenly get taken out leaving me at a positional loss. My king may end up on an island of squares unable to be captured, but that doesn't mean I've won since he still could be hit, or I could end up with a stalemate.

I'd be interested in laying this sometime just to see how it would work out. It may be necessary to make it 2 turns between meteors to prevent a totally chaotic game.

Brief history about my television habits to date. My family resisted getting cable until after the 1st gulf war. So until I guess I was a freshman in high school or maybe a sophomore all I had was the big 3, a couple UHF stations, and two PBS stations (we got dallas AND denton!). Then we got basic cable, and wow were their choices. I was a news junkie, sports junkie, and music junkie in high school and college. Post college I had the digital package and usually a premium channel as well. And in fact before I moved in with Jess in 2004 I was a Nielson family. But since the fall of 2004 I have been cable free. And until last spring we only knew that we could get fox in our tv, so most of our tv viewing was done at people's houses or on DVD. Which meant we were pretty picky about what we watched.

Now we have cable again. And flipping through the channels I have to say I am very disappointed in the lack of quality programming. Maybe it is the fact we are in the dead months of summer, maybe this is a lingering effect of the writer's strike, but so far I am not impressed. And in fact I'm a bit miffed at the sheer number of commercials on shows that are pretty much infomercials anyway(I'm looking at you Travel channel and FoodTv). I want the tv revolution now!

If you live in Austin and have boxes Jess and I can take to move with, let me know!

Thanks in advance!

Zoe has been fussy at bedtime four nights in a row. First we thought it was because it was the pack n play. Then we thought maybe it was theatrics, but last night I got the idea that maybe unlike naps, she needs her room dark dark dark to sleep. So after about an hour last night of crying we took the dark blue sheet and ran it under the curtain rod to darken the room. We'll see if tonight that was really the problem, or if she really is being dramatic for cuddles.

We have been watching 24 on and off. Season one was good, season two was better, Season three is where I started to have a problem with the show, but watched it through the season. Last night we watched episode one of season four. This is where I give up on the show. I just can't watch anymore. It just lost me.

The fact that Jack has another intimate relationship with someone who is kidnapped (like his daughter twice) just seemed so stale. And The whole interrogation of the prisoner where there is literally moments until the Secretary of Defense is kidnapped so Jack shoots him in the leg, that was totally uncalled for and unexcuseable. And the whole developing plot line of the Secretary of Defense's son being an antiwar activist (which I will assume was somehow influenced by the people who kidnapped the Sec Defense) seems to indicate that if you speak out against the military you support terrorism. This I find offensive.

So Jack, I feel for you, but I'm done with you.

So I've owned my Ford Focus for 7 years now. We've had good times, and bad times. But one thing that has been pretty consistent about the car is the miles per gallon. It was never the best out there, and with hybrids being more affordable it is getting blown out of the water. But for a non hybrid it was always pretty solid. I remember people laughing at me when I said that one of the selling points was the miles per gallon. Of course that was May of 2001 and I could fill the tank from empty with a $10 bill. Well who is laughing now? Well not me anymore. I filled up my tank (I got 11 gallons yesterday) for $40! I mean seriously watching the price of gas go up so much in seven years is insane! I feel old complaining about gas prices, but doing a double take at the pump yesterday triggered something in my head. Next car HAS to be a hybrid with at least 40+mpg no excuses. If I could find an electric car for my commute that would be even better in my opinion.

Powered By online adult shopping


Dood, Jules....I am your leader?

Okay I know plenty have heard me riff on the top 4 rock band thing lately, so if you've heard that fast forward to paragraph two. About a week and a half ago I was listening to the Slate Cultural Gabfest and in a more or less aside comment, the host Stephen Metcalf said, "I have this ongoing conversation with a friend of mine that there is no 5th greatest rock band. The top four are so obvious: The Beatles, The [Rolling] Stones, The Velvet Undergroud, and The Clash. But who is number five? Is the Grateful Dead, Led Zepplin? Who knows?" This got me thinking to myself, are those really the obvious top four? I sort of accepted that the Stones and the Beatles were obvious given their huge influence and commercial success. But the the other two surprised me given that while both are often cited as influential, neither enjoyed huge commercial success on par with other bands. So I've been grappling with this "Top 4" question for a little while now.

On Saturday I had lunch with Dom, Ron, Jason, Andrew, Jess and my daughter. I asked Ron the question and after brief consideration and dialog, the question got flipped. What are the worst four rock bands of all time. The two obvious ones we quickly came to consensus on were Nickleback and Creed. Without a question suck in such grand scale that if there ever were anti-Beatles and anti-Stones, these guys would be them. I dare not contemplate what would happen if you put Creed in a room with the Rolling Stones. But who else qualifies for worst 4 status? New Kids on the Block was nominated, because while they haven't had nearly the lengthy success that Nickleback and Creed have enjoyed, they were massively influential. You wouldn't have Backstreet, N'Sync or 98 Degrees without them. However after discussing this with Dood I think they might be disqualified because they aren't rock. They are undeniably pop creations. Jess suggested yesterday that Milli Vanilli should be grouped in, but Dood's objection still is valid. So we are back to who are the other two in the worst four slots.

The criterion we established are as follows. First they can't be a one hit wonder. I would argue Silverchair sucks, but they lack either influence on other crappy bands or lengthy commercial success to be considered. I did suggest Matchbox 20, and Dom objected citing Rob Thomas having quality work post Matchbox. But the McCartney Principle comes into play. Just like the Beatles can't be penalized because Paul McCartney formed Wings after the Beatles, Matchbox 20 cannot be helped because Rob Thomas did quality work post Matchbox.

So who are the worst bands out there? Remember they have to be in the rock genre (sub-genres are okay), they have to be a group, so no solo acts.

I read a great piece in Slate this morning about how our public notions of science suffer from a large degree of paranoia. This seems to be largely motivated by non-scientific entities like political organizations (pro-business, pro-enviroment, pro-religous, pro-consumer safety etc etc etc) And the long term effect might very well be that we prevent progress because we are increasingly give an audience to conspiracy theories where non exist. Allow anything to be doubted to the point of absurdity. And that these doubts can put people in real medical an health dangers. Think about the tobacco industry casting serious manipulative doubt on whether smoking causes cancer since the late 60s. That is a generation of people who didn't have access to proper information because scientific evidence was disputed using what I'd basically say is rhetorical weapons.

http://www.slate.com/id/2189178/entry/2189179/

In other news I got my T4 shoulders last night! YAY!

When I has in middle school or high school, my mom bought A brief History of Time by Stephen Hawking. I tried to read it then, got overwhelmed and stopped after a few chapters. I have tried periodically to finish it and pretty much crapped out after a few chapters. Last night I finally finished it, and I mostly understand it. Though string theory seems weird as hell, and the book was written during the 5 flavors period, I still feel like I get it.

So one book I've been meaning to read down, and plenty to go. Up next should I tackle Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith or A Theory of Justice by John Rawls?

I was listening to the NOW podcast from the PBS series of the same name. The most recent episode was about an effort in Cambridge Mass to encourage energy conservation. With rising energy prices and a fear of man's carbon footprint, the ideas of saving energy have become a lot more desirable to many people.

But how will this all play out? The show talked a lot about how a nonprofit group was going to try and get everyone in Cambridge to reduce their energy consumption by 50%. They would be willing to come to your home or business and do an audit, and if necessary help you get a loan to help pay for the necessary upgrades. One of the two big barriers to serious efforts to conservation by end users is the cost of making upgrades like replacing insulation, weather stripping, or replacing energy inefficient appliances with more energy frugal models. The other big barrier is the expectation of required lifestyle changes like being diligent about turning off lights, regulating your thermostat and watching less TV.

But I began thinking about Cambridge as a whole, or more likely society as a whole. The large financial incentive to being better about energy usage is this notion of perceived savings. And if the price of energy was a constant, everyone has an incentive to conserve because you would see savings over the long term and eventually pay off the cost of replacing tech in your home or business with more energy efficient means. The most common example people cite is compact florescent light bulbs (CLFLB). They have a much longer lifespan than incandescent bulbs, and they use half or a third of the energy of an incandescent bulb. Last summer I swapped out almost every bulb in our apartment with CFLB and immediately noticed a significant drop in our power consumption between July and August (two of the hottest months in Texas). This was probably a two fold reduction. First the bulbs themselves use less energy so that is saving power and money, but also the bulbs don't produce as much heat which meant our AC had to do less work which meant less money. So there really is this savings to be had. Kind of.

One of the things that influences the price of electricity is the amount consumed. The electric company is a profit making entity and for reasons more complex than I really want to get into, will raise the price to compensate for the reduction in demand. Sure their costs do go down, requiring fewer resources to produce less electricity, but there are certain unavoidable and large fixed costs that make this a reality in the long run should their be a significant drop in overall consumption.

The breakdown of these competing forces works like this. People have a financial incentive to conserve. If they adopt energy saving measures, they hopefully can use the savings in power bills to pay for these upgrades. But as more people cut back on power usage the price will go up, making the amount saved less and less. And making the penalty for not already conserving greater and greater. I played with some numbers using 5 power users, a power budget, a basic cost formula and a phased in approach where the first player cut his energy usage by half turn one and player 5 did the same on turn 5. Now admittedly the model is overly simplistic and based on broad assumptions that could very well be wrong like how the cost curve works for power etc. But the overall trend I found basically says that the sooner you go through a serious conservation overhaul on your energy consumption the better. Player one got the largest savings, player 2 was moderate, and player 3 barely had any and that could easily go the other way should my assumptions be wrong. Player 4 had a moderate penalty, and player 5 basically subsidized the savings enjoyed by the other players the longest and couldn't count on those savings to pay for the retrofitting at all.

So the lesson I am drawing from my crude experiment is that early adopters win the most and late adopters pay the biggest penalty if conservation were to become a massive movement through out society. And this has everything to do with the price of electricity being determined by market forces. Now I'm not thinking that we need mandate prices. But because of the price subsidizing effect the people who convert last essentially pay for the retrofits twice. They pay their own retrofits out of pocket, and they pay for the other players retrofits by consuming power at increasing rates over time. So if you are concerned about your power bill, conserve earlier rather than later and be one of the early adopters.

I had a discussion yesterday with Dood where I went on a bit of a philosophical riff against Ayn Rand and Objectivism, essentially making the claim that are at best pop-philosophy and at worst a recipe for societal disaster and the worst "moral system" in popular print. (Though I didn't put it exactly like that). Anyway I feel like debating Rand clearly puts me in the Pseudo-Intellectual realm since I'm dismissing the life work of a published and beloved author. But what would it take to elevate me from that to actual intellectual? Do I have to publish? Or does just thinking alone get me there?

Thoughts?

My old roomate Ron has lost his job this week. He has worked for the last decade in the radio industry going from morning show intern lackey to the evening DJ. He has never had much of a sense of job security. That is the nature of the business. He has survived numerous and seemingly frequent rounds of firings, restructurings, layoffs, take overs, buyouts, etc etc. And he has pretty much had his fill. So he asked me to keep an ear out. Well I've worked in the same office for 7 years and see the same 7 people everyday pretty much. I spend my evenings gushing about how awesome my daughter is. So my ears don't get out much. But yours probably does.

So if you know of any job prospects that need a hard working, intelligent, friendly face, let me know. jpconnaughton (squiggly at symbol) gmail dot com. And I will forward them on. If you have any questions about his training, experience, or whatever, I'd be more than happy to answer to the best of my knowledge in the comments.

Everynight around 6pm or so our kid gets pretty cranky. But two days ago I tried something. First I put her in her bouncer seat, then I put her sealife activity toy next to it. When she kicks, she pushes against a toy crab which sets off the lights and makes the noise. As seen here. Well that wasn't enough so I decided I'd also set to doing chores of straightening up and letting the roomba run the living room. Jess started the dishwasher. All of this seemed to calm her down. So last night when she got fussy again we repeated and she calmed down. This kid will have us in the cleanest house in no time.

Slate Article on '47 Cheval

This morning I read the linked article and it was this seemingly poetic appreciation of the finer points of the sense of taste. I think that audiophiles appreciate music in a unique way. Feeling the texture of sound like one might feel the differences between a silk scarf or a wool blanket. Wine drinkers, and I mean the wine snobs out there, are much the same way but about taste. Reading the article made me long for that kind of sensory appreciation. The ability to dissect a flavor into all of its parts and cherish it like a beloved poem. It was really a nice read.

One thing I want to do is get an 2008 Texas wine to keep fro Zoe for when she is 21 or gets married or whatever. Sort of a sentimental gift of where she was born, and how far she has come. If anyone knows a good resource to help me in this task (and yes I realize there are no 2008 wines available yet, but I'd like to know where to start looking), I would really appreciate it. Also collecting scotch for a similar purpose is wanted (To be opened at her wedding/engagement party/college graduation/special adult ceremony honoring her).